Fuck You Two Minute Noodles

I grew up in the 70’s when Suimin instant noodles in those styrofoam cups were considered pretty exotic. Fluorescent pink sweet and sour pork from a Chinese restaurant was world class cuisine and if you had tried Japanese food people would think you were a superstar.

Somehow over the years those magic instant noodles lasted the distance and have now become synonymous with 45 year old men still living at home, singing Kumbaya around a campfire and the last resort dinner for millions of Australian kids with very lazy (and tired) parents. Backpackers can live on this shit for an entire year without ingesting any other foodstuff and they continue to be gobbled up every day of the week.

My kids absolutely love them and request them more often than I’m willing to admit. But given that I try and feed a well balanced kale-free diet at Chateau Far Kew, these treats are few and far between. Recently on a campervan trip to Tasmania I grabbed a couple as an emergency snack. I chose a Fantastic brand chicken flavour noodle bowl. We never ended up eating it in Tasmania because Tassie is full of amazing fresh produce, so I foolishly brought it home (what a tight arse I am) for a future snack fest.

One night when the kids were being total fucking arse bandits and I’d sunk a few glasses of wine just to get me through bitching hour I decided I was going to eat one. The Husband wasn’t home and I didn’t have to feed anyone else but me. I was going to indulge in a little 70’s nostalgia. I boiled the water and peeled back the lid. I carefully sprinkled the flavour sachet on top and then opened up a really pathetic looking satchel of “vegetables”. It contained 3 dehydrated peas and about 4 minuscule bits of dried carrot. Can this be fucking legal? They are adding the bare bloody minimum to make it actually contain vegetables because they’ve listed “dehydrated seasonal vegetables” on the ingredients list. And the taste! OH WOW. It was not very fucking oriental. It was more like an “idea” someone had of what a chicken must taste like. Made by someone that has never actually eaten a fucking chicken. And of course if you investigate the ingredients lists it contains no actual chicken.

I am still now trying to get the flavour out of my mouth and it transpires that Fantastic Noodle bowls are very far from being fantastic.

Another big player in the instant noodle world are Maggi 2 minute noodles. As the packet suggests you assume these cook in 2 minutes, right? Wrong. By the time you’ve got the pan out, boiled the water, opened the packet, chucked it in and let it return to the boil it’s at least 5 fucking minutes. And if you are drunk and dribbling into the pot then those minutes really hurt. Most reasonable people will add a handful of those frozen peas, carrot and corn into the mix meaning that will cool everything right down and add a couple of extra minutes. Then there is the sachet of flavouring with some kind of magic dryness sucking up all the water and making everything stick to the bottom meaning you’ll have to add a few more splashes of cold water extending the cooking time even fucking further. By this time you are well past 15 minutes and may as well have cooked a quick Jamie Oliver recipe that actually resembles proper food. But by by now you’ve invested in this fucking monstrosity and need to see it through.

I googled “Do two minute noodles cook in two minutes?” and found dozens of websites where sad fuckers swap tips on how to enhance this shitty feast. Everything from certain sauces to very particular vegetables and varying cooking temperatures. Somebody even enthusiastically shared his recipe for two minute noodles with diced spam and lettuce. Can’t wait to try that one.

One guy on a forum suggests making a “Spaghetti Bolognese” using an entire bottle of tomato sauce and a whole container of parmesan cheese. And nothing else. He even gives a heads up that it’s a fairly difficult dish to make due to the complexity of getting the water into the pot.

Or you can add “Penut” butter like Aetius who is 47 from Adelaide and living in his parents garage. He’s obviously tested out his method a few times as his description is very involved. He does it “by eye” so he’s a damn well fucking culinary genius by the sounds of things. Heston Blumenthal had better watch his back.

These are real people. Walking in our midst. You probably wouldn’t even be able to pick them out of a crowd.

After spending longer than I should have reading these incredibly depressing recipe recommendations I decided that I would never cook this crap again.

I feel more connected to humanity knowing that someone else out there drinks too much wine, has a bitching hour and kids that sometimes behave like arse bandits and is willing to put pretty much anything in their mouth…i usually go for jelly snakes and chips. Thanks for keeping it real..

Hehe the peanut butter noodles is actually my son’s favourite. I found it (sans the 2 minutes noodles ) in one of Nigella’s books. I make it with ready to use Hokkien noodles to show some effort and he’ll gobble up the entire bowl… of course you can kale cos everything tastes better with kale 😉

Hahaha I’ve resorted to them on occasion. I love the smell of someone cooking them, but far out – I end up feeling under nourished and dehydrated every time! I don’t know how I survived my childhood!!
As for the ‘enhanced’ 2 minute noodles – if you’re going to take that much effort to make them better, you probably could have made something more ‘real’ and ‘fancy’ from scratch in that time!

I have never been allowed to add the vegetables to two minute noodles for my kids. They have also been known to eat them raw. (Just the noodles). No nutrition at all, but I guess they are crunchy. We do sometimes buy fancy arse but cheap ones from the Asian shops which are fabulous (especially if you add an egg and some greens – real ones), but you have to know the right ones to buy. Because some contain weird ingredients which does stuff to your stomach that can kill you. (My teen wants to be a medical examiner and studies this stuff and spoils many meals by telling us what is going to make us sick. Having said that we rarely get food poisoning…) Did you know that many burns are also caused by two minute noodles? I shit you not. They are evil. EVIL.

I personally like how ‘penut’ boy was worried about the salt content more than how incredibly nutrient deficient and cancer causing the noodles are!. Another question that springs to mind in regards to turning 2 min noodles into spaghetti is ….. Why not just buy a tin of spaghetti. All jokes aside, thank you to these wonderful humans for posting their recipes. It’s been the best 10 minutes of my week.

You have managed to save me from having a totally fucked day after the dimwit builders at work didn’t waterproof the half of building they chopped off to add the extension and the server room flooded, knocking out all IT. I feel like I have been at work for 3 days straight, but I have a new found admiration for the wonders of a functioning technical world. How good it is to type this instead of hand writing and filing to scan into the computer later….
Thanks for venting and, in turn, releasing my tensions. The aged spiced rum has somewhat helped too 🙂

OMG….have been going through the same nostalgic process. Yes, the Fantastic noodles do not live up to their name. Fucking crap. I have found some Suimin ones around. Not like they were in gbeir heyday but still more edible than the Craptastic. Also, I did that satay 2 minute noodle thing when I was drug fucked and broke at uni. It was delish then. Might give it a whirl! Or not. Hilarious as always!

Oh OK oops I meant to add they actually work with just water boiled up in a kettle. Just pour and TWO MINUTES later they are actually done. None of this actual pot cookibg shit. Basically like making a tea bag tea. I feel ALDI deserves some credit here. But then I am always pushing ALDI, it’s in my blood I guess.